


I Carry Your Heart

by screwysonic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, remus lupin - Freeform, sirius black - Freeform, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:47:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screwysonic/pseuds/screwysonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Remus settled his grief over losing Sirius Black, in more way than one. Inspired by the poem of the same name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Carry Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> First work on this site! I'm really looking forward to being part of this community.

You were on my mind so much.

The worst part about it was having to deal with my grief alone; I remembered that time we sat under the youngest willow in Hyde Park- it was only young because we tip-toed in, after dusk, and planted it together right after we graduated and we laughed (your laugh was so throaty and rich) and you glowed so much my heart froze. You were so goddamn handsome and you loved me so much- more than anything, we were magical, together or apart- in instantaneous ways that seemed unfathomable. Well, anyways, I couldn’t stop recalling the first night we sat out there together, in front of everyone and near no one- and we held hands occasionally but you kept moaning it was too hot. I perused a poetry book, e e cummings, and you laughed at his name and his funny loathing of punctuation, but you were interested in the poem I had been reading-

_“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in_

_my heart)i am never without it(anywhere_

_i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done_

_by only me is your doing,my darling)” – ee cummings_

 

You said, “that muggle is funny” with such a smirk, and I frowned slightly.

"I think it’s beautiful." You stared at me for a few moments, before you parted lips and then dropped your smirk.

"It is." You didn’t elaborate right away, you read over my shoulder and then ripped it from my hands and consumed it again, and you turned back to me. “It never once says she or he.” I shrug.

“A poet knows what they want to say, Sirius.” I reply, and you grinned from ear to ear.

“Still. That’s a bloody pouf for you.” I rolled my eyes and took the book back, clutching it close.

“You know, you sometimes forget. What these poets do- what normal people do- is relate to others. The deepest part of our hearts. That’s what makes them good; that’s what makes them magical. That’s why their worth saving. You roll your eyes at this kind of stuff, but these words- they’re the only immortal thing in this world or our world. Find me a stronger power than that.”

You didn’t say much of anything else- you pulled me up from the ground, and I brushed the dirt off my tee shirt and vagabond feeling jeans and sandals. You rose, flawless; and said nothing to me. We went and got a sno-cone (we were so strange, so young- did we know what we were going to lose? That this would end nearly as quickly as it began?)

“I love you.” Your tongue was blue, but your heart was beating red and it was thumping in that chest for me, because you…you loved me. I didn’t say it back.

It may seem ironic that I was always more open about being homosexual than you, but I was more afraid of the words. The ones you said. Still, you told them to me all the time- without my encouragement. But there, in that park among all those ordinary people, you told me, the plainest of all men, that you loved me. I had won, I had risen- there was no greater feeling in the entire world.

 

Hyde Park was so wonderful because it was so human, truly human with flaws and all. Some people skated while others cried; children skipped and we sat, or laid, or soaked in the melancholy air of London. Oh, London. We grew that tree so large in a matter of months- and nobody noticed its appearance the same way that after I stopped going, no one noticed I wasn’t there.

Or that you were gone, too. Seems so ironic that my entire life was ripped apart by you, but that the world kept revolving, the kids kept playing, and I…well, I kept dying. I lost anyone I considered dear in the world; and never being fond of anyone else, including myself, I sank low and turned to something that had been your friend for far too long, as well. Firewhiskey. I drank and I swam, but when the night continued on and swallowing became difficult because I couldn’t feel it is when I would start to drown. I screamed, I wailed- when the moon continued on its phases in life, like nothing had gone wrong- I howled, after years of companionship- not just from you; I lost four friends that day- I felt so lost, so empty and I often wished I was dead rather than living having to deal alone and mistrust you- to grieve not only the loss of my best friends, but the betrayal of a lover- a friend- who always seemed so loyal, so deep- and so mine. What had you done to me?

I patted myself on the back sometimes, glad that I never told you that I loved you, too. I was glad I let the words only come from you- at least I had never degraded myself to that. I kept my honor intact and protected myself from deceit- but it was never enough. I could never be fully satisfied, because the truth was I loved you so much it nearly killed me.

After a few drinks, I’d sit in my trashed apartment- Dumbledore came to me often in that period- we’d both sit quietly- I’d offer him some mead and he’d decline and pierce me.

“Remus…” he began once, “I know how you feel.” I glowered at him and he looked back softly, he pitied me, that Dumbledore did- and I was so bitter against him; this man, who had picked kids to fight in a war. We were fucking kids. I don’t care if we fought, if we screamed. He should have known better. Lily and James, Peter, Sirius…we were all twenty-one with a million firsts to have and Harry…Harry Potter, he had a million more firsts to see as well, with his beautiful mother Lily and strong James. Everyone was now deprived of that nature, that pleasure- that beauty. We were children. But Dumbledore was a father himself- almost holy- I hated him as much as I hated God at that time, but I found comfort in his company- even when he sat with me silently and he pitied me, he also cared for me- but I often hated him unfairly. “I do.”

“You can’t.” I say, simply, because this is true. Empathetic Dumbledore may always be- he was brilliant, wise, gentle and fierce at the same time- but he would never understand. He reached over and poured himself a glass of mead, removed his spectacles- at this point, he wasn’t nearly as old as he was at the end, but he was far from young, and then began in a voice that was more wavering and rough than usual.

“When I was a young man, a young man, Remus…I fell in love with another young man who was almost as brilliant as me. I guess you can say in ways, he was superior to me in intellect. How could I have been so deceived in what I saw in him? How did I fall into what he said to me? He was always more handsome, more charismatic than me. He inspired me, you see, to be better than what I was because he loved me for more than what I thought I was. In the end; I was only the person I thought I was. Gradually, my opinion of myself evolved and I knew that I was better than what I was doing. I turned my back on him…” He said, draining his glass and the color left his face so fast I believed he was going to pass out there, I went to catch him, but he waved me off looking more upset than I had ever seen him, even when the war turned sourer he never looked as impaired there as he did then, in my fucking apartment, crying over a man he lost nearly half a century ago.

“Who?” I croaked, fearing that sitting in front of me was a picture of what I’d be like in fifty years. Brilliant, beloved- but empty without you.

“Gellert Grindelwald.”

Sometimes Dumbledore was as astounding man. Literally astounding. When he left that night, I remember turning to you and saying. “now…what do you think about that?”

You didn’t answer. That was a bad habit of mine. As I walked the house, I’d ask you things, tell you stories- explain my feelings. One morning, I was making a bowl of oatmeal after a particularly long night- and you began talking back. I asked you if I should have brown sugar, or cinnamon.

“Cinnamon. Don’t you remember what it was like, kissing after cinnamon toast crunch?”

I shook it off then; I caught a train to the muggle library where I now worked to kill time. I filed books quietly, sometimes turning the books to stare at their worn bindings, running my fingers over them- sometimes they felt so bumpy and it reminded me of a human spine- that bound me together- some of them were broken and cracked; we were supposed to discard those for replacement or resell. I pulled them and I’d take them home. Words were immortal. So I began to collect them all. I’d get home and light a few candles. I’d curl into a ball by one of them, and I’d read. I got a lot of classics in that time. And a lot of poetry.

Whenever I’d find something interesting, I’d tell you. I explained who W. H Auden was. “You would have liked Auden. He was quite a pouf, as you would say. He was quite filthy sometimes. But he also had grace, an unmistakable style; intelligent. Look, here is one entirely about…” I trailed off, sipping my whiskey, and I’d eventually fall into sleep; the whiskey would be there, the books would be there, the candles would be there- but you wouldn’t- and that fire consumed me.

You nearly killed me.

After that, Dumbledore found me another place with a person who he helped out once. They took me on as a tenant, and I stayed with her, Arabella Fig, for free; as long as I promised not to drink. So I tried. But you…you wouldn’t stop coming. I tore myself apart- why, why couldn’t I let you leave me? You destroyed me. You hurt me, you betrayed me, you killed Lily and James, you murdered Peter- but you clung to me so tightly that I no longer wanted to be with you. I wanted to move on, but I couldn’t, Sirius.

After work at the end of that first month, I walked back to Hyde Park. I sought for our tree- I found it, and I looked up. It had begun to sprout flowers- oh my god, they were such beautiful flowers- but…it was a willow, a willow did not flower. Was this really us? Was this really ours? I fell to my knees, and I began to cry harder than I ever cried in my life.

“Oh God, Sirius. I love you so much.” I couldn’t stop- once it took a hold of my body it rocked me in such a way that I’ll never forget. “What did you do to me? WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?”

No one in Hyde Park froze; everyone continued on. Two babies passed me in strollers, with snowcones, and I continued to scream- and no one cared, no one asked me to stop. I thought back to how different life had been. I thought of when we both first discovered our feelings for each other. I thought back to that first time again, the first time you told me.

_“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in_

_my heart)i am never without it(anywhere_

_i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done_

_by only me is your doing,my darling)”_

-that was my way…that was my way of saying it, too. I took out my wand and pointed it to the trunk of our tree. It was our tree. And forever it would stay that way. I engraved it- I tattooed it and it didn’t howl in protest- in fact, the flowers poured from the branches and they fell into my hair like caresses. Like kisses.

_“here is the deepest secret nobody knows_

_(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud_

_and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows_

_higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)_

_and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart_

_i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)” – ee cummings_

After that, Sirius…you left me alone. I never talked to you again- at least not like that. And after all these years, I still love you. But I don’t regret it. You have to know, I don’t regret growing up, and I don’t regret changing. I had to. But I carry your burden, babe, and I carry you heart.

 


End file.
